


A New Dream

by gatherer_of_dust



Category: Berserk (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Griffith does things right, M/M, Mostly Guts POV, Pirate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27023233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatherer_of_dust/pseuds/gatherer_of_dust
Summary: Basically, Griffith isn't a trash human being and does the right thing. However, Guts is left to make a choice. Will he join him in making the world better for everyone, or will he strike out on his own in pursuit of his own path? They share a tender moment and talk about the future.Also Pirate AU because it's cool and fits Berserk pretty well. I didn't get to write it as much as I wanted but oh well. It's there if you squint.(I still love/hate Griffith and think he did everything wrong, but we won't talk about that.)
Relationships: Griffith & Guts (Berserk), Griffith/Guts (Berserk)
Kudos: 16





	A New Dream

To Guts, Griffith was nothing short of a force of nature. He was strong, benevolent, kind, forceful, awe-inspiring, and intimidating with his intelligence. He was the perfect leader - the one that every wayward bastard needed to obtain salvation. Guts was one of those bastards - one who had received a royal ass-kicking from the princely captain’s entourage before he was stripped of all his belongings and nearly cast into the sea. 

That was, until Griffith had offered his hand. Naturally, Guts, being incorrigibly stubborn, had refused that hand, but Griffith was equally stubborn in nature. He had dueled him for his subordination, and had made him a member of the crew aboard the Falcon.

No longer would he spend his days killing and looting whoever the higher-ups hired him to - as they did to lone pirates such as himself. No longer would he spend his days in grungy saloons, always risking the noose or the edge of a cutlass. Now, he was with the cream of the crop. He was with a band of pirates that were on top of the world, and all its seven seas. They worked for royalty, and were paid handsomely for their plundering. 

What bothered Guts, though, was how they had risen so quickly, and what was happening to Griffith. He felt that he was losing him - the man who he had always had a sort of intimacy with from the very beginning. The work that they were doing seemed almost soulless at this point - too easy, too highly rewarded. Griffith was spending less and less time with them aboard the ship, and more and more time in the castle, most often overnights. He was losing him, and he felt his absence deeply.  
After several long, uneventful days and nights of awaiting his return aboard the Falcon, Griffith had finally returned. His smile was faint, and all the light had been drained from his eyes. Had it ever really even been there?

The world that that man desired was something that Guts could hardly dream of. All he’d ever known was swinging his sword, but to what end? To protect himself? He didn’t give a damn about his own hide, so long as he could live to…what? What was it that he lived for? To protect the people he loved? Guts knew damn well that he wasn’t in control of that. He could try and fight fate, but what would that do? Perhaps he shouldn’t live so wantonly. 

Or perhaps he should live for the moment, and savor each one that he had with his crew before those days came to an end - and fight to protect those days so that they never would. Griffith’s dream sure sounded astounding - that part of Griffith had always amused and mesmerized Guts, and had drawn him to him. But he was terrified of it. He wanted to stay with Griffith now, as he was, before it was too late...before he- no.

Griffith barely acknowledged Guts when he arrived onboard the Falcon, too busy with his more outgoing crew, but Guts could tell that he wasn’t really there, even from afar.

That night, Guts dined alone, as he usually did - for once, they hadn’t been invited up into the castle. The waves lapped at the sides of the creaking ship and rocked it gently, the anchor dropped as the vessel sat on the tranquil sea, a light breeze blowing through the riggings. 

The moon was tear-bright that night, and smiled upon the hard wood like molten silver, illuminating Guts’ jet black hair and shining on the sparse amount of metal in his clothes. Guts wore very simple attire - that befitting of a roguish outlaw. He had been born outside of the law, and now, somehow, he was closer to the law than most anyone else, especially those of his background that had come from nothing. To him, Griffith seemed impossible, unattainable. He was so far away now, and yet he always had been, looking back. His mind was always in another place, his fingers outstretched to some foreign light that Guts was blind to. He wanted to see it - wanted to know what power it was that possessed Griffith’s entire being and compelled him to be so great. What greatness was it that only Griffith could fathom, could even begin to understand?

They were pirates, both of them. Guts had always known what that meant. He wasn’t a valid human, let alone a reputable one. They were both of humble births - or rather, that was a kinder way of putting it. Griffith had grown up in the capital city, and had spent a good deal of his childhood on the docks and in the alleyways, barely able to eat half of the time. Guts, on the other hand, had come from death and destruction, and had been salvaged from that wreckage that was the result of a raid organized by pirates to ransack his hometown - a small fishing village on the coast. It was a group of pirates that had rescued him from that muck and filth, and had raised him to fight ruthlessly and kill unhesitantly. Guts knew the irony of his life. He didn’t mind. Or at least, that was what he told himself. 

Even though he had long ago been betrayed by his crew and had run far away, decided to work for whoever would pay, he was still a pirate. He had only changed ships. But something about Griffith’s ship felt different. Like everything that he did was almost justified. After all, the lot of them were about to be made a part of the naval army, working to fight against pirates and outlaws as well as other countries and their fleets. They would be one of the most important ships on the sea, since their ship would be commanding countless other ships on the water. The power of it seemed almost incomprehensible.

He liked to think that he was satisfied with his life. That he could be happy with just being on the water, swinging his blade and taking the rewards. It was the water that kept him alive, kept him sane. Sometimes, however, he dreamed that he was surrounded by an ocean of blood, the water gone sticky and putrid and stifling everything else, even the sky turning a bleak blood red. When he awoke, he let his tears fall in silence, more water to mingle with the sea.

There was another person who was unsatisfied with his life, and he was out there on the deck with Guts, suddenly beside him, arms resting on the edge beside where guts sat, staring out at the dark, moonlit sea that stirred the ship ever so subtly. 

Griffith’s lustrous tresses billowed about his porcelain face, rosy lips curved into his signature faraway smile. His eyes were dreamy and distant, and yet often they were also quite bleak, like a midwinter blizzard, cold and terrifying. Yet somehow, in the gentle moonlight, they appeared almost soft with some sort of emotion. 

Guts had no doubt in his mind that their captain felt things. It was just what those feelings were that confused him. Did he experience the world around him in a way different from everyone else? No, he was only human, only a man. Of course, no individual thinks and feels in the same way as another, thus was the cruel distance between humanity and other humans.

However, out on the ocean, not far from the harbor, gazing at the distant city and up at the castle with its imposing presence, Griffith was strangely close. Guts could almost imagine that they were looking at the same vision. Perhaps he was foolish for thinking that.  
There was something on Guts’ mind. Something that he couldn’t bat away as easily as a fly. It had been bothering him for a while now, what with Griffith’s changes that only he could see. Perhaps Casca could see it, too.

“Hey, Captain.”

“Yes, Guts?” Griffith’s voice was quiet and melodic, almost beautiful to listen to. But there was an edge to it.

Guts hesitated. “I’ve been thinking…”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. About the future.”

Griffith appeared unphased, eyes trained on the horizon, pearlescent locks stirring about his shoulders and face. “What about the future?”

Guts sighed. “Well, we’ve got a lot ahead of us, haven’t we? I mean, we proved ourselves useful to the king, and now he wants us to command armies in the war.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

“Do you think we can win? Can we end this war?”

“I don’t know.”

The larger man felt a slight frustration welling inside. There was always something in Griffith that angered him, for some reason. “Okay then. What if we do win? Then what? You talk so often these days about sacrificing everything for your dream. If we win this war, your ambitions may very well be achieved. And I've been thinking.  
“Are we a part of that dream? Would you sacrifice everything for us, for our shared dream, or are we just pawns in your plan - a currency to be traded in for some brighter greatness, something to be sacrificed with everything else?”

Griffith bit his lip, and a look of obvious conflict flashed in his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Also, you’ve said that twice now.”

“What?”

“‘I’ve been thinking.’ Maybe you should stop thinking and start swinging your sword again. It’s what you do best.” The tension in Griffith’s voice was audible to him.

It wasn’t like the captain to be this readable, this open with the workings of his mind. “Okay, then. What are your plans, once this war is over? Will we hunt down pirates, and sail the seas until the end of time? Will we give up, and retire to live lives of luxury? Once this war is over, will there even be a place for us in that world of greatness you described, or will we be discarded like jettison from a ship, forced to walk the plank?”

Now it was Griffith’s turn to sigh. “Look, Guts. There are some of us born with a special purpose - a destiny, you might call it. A calling. Chosen for greatness, meant for something much larger than whatever they might have come from. Where you’ve come from is irrelevant. It’s where you’re going. Isn’t that hope kind of beautiful?”

Guts scoffed, causing Griffith to be slightly taken aback. “Doesn’t that just make those people pawns? How is there any hope in that?”

“Like I said, Guts, I don’t know. All I know is that you all are very important to me. You mean more to me than just being my crew. You’re very close to my heart, all of you. But sometimes, there are things more important than what you consider dear. A greatness that is beyond those things. I believe that I might be one of those people destined for greatness. Perhaps, my humble soul may be a force for change. And I would gladly give up my entire being as a vessel for that purpose.  
“I will change the world that we live in, so that no one is born like us. So that no one has to fight this hard to obtain validity in this world. So that everyone is cared for, has a mother and father, and food on the table. It is necessary that I reach the top in order to do that. To reshape this cruel world that we live in so that nobody has to be born special. I don’t know what it is I’ll do. But know this. If any of you stand in my way, I will not hesitate to sacrifice you. Sacrifice, so that nobody ever has to, ever again.”

Guts frowned. There was no doubt in his mind that the man was serious. Griffith, who was often playful and childlike at times, laughing and joking with Guts and his comrades, smiling innocently and boyishly in the midst of great darkness and even peril like a lantern in the night, could easily and quickly morph into a sage, striking face of profundity and wonder. 

He remembered clearly how he and Griffith played in the water, splashing buckets on one another and running about like little boys, and the next minute Griffith was towering over him, gilded in sublime sunlight and almost godlike in that glow, declaring unhesitantly his loyalty to his dream, and his control of Guts. Did he feel a responsibility for him? Perhaps, in a twisted sort of way. Was there any love between them? 

Guts wouldn’t dare catch himself feeling sentimental over Griffith, but he couldn’t deny that there was something awe striking about him, something beautiful. He’d never doubted Griffith from the beginning. No matter how many people had laughed at him, taken advantage of him, scoffed at his dreams and called them unattainable, Griffith didn’t flinch or ever even consider backing down. And he’d never doubted Griffith’s power to get what he desired. They had come this far, after all. Now they were no longer pirates. They would be commanding armies. It was nothing short of amazing. 

And power wasn’t all that he desired that he had obtained. He had Guts, and that was something even Guts couldn’t deny. He liked to believe that he belonged to no one, but truly, Griffith had won him over heart and soul, not simply physically, with that duel way back when.  
But Guts knew that Griffith wasn’t near satisfied with what he had. Not with the immense amount of power he held, and not with him. He would never be happy with what he had, perhaps. Or maybe Guts just couldn’t understand him at all. Still, it hurt to think that he wasn’t enough. That his crew wasn’t enough. No matter how much he tried to numb himself to the pain. 

It hurt even more to think that Griffith cared so little for them in the presence of his dream that he would gladly sacrifice them for it. It sounded noble, perhaps, but Guts knew well that no dream was ever truly and completely noble and pure. Dreams could get ugly, and it was best to protect and savor what you had. But Griffith didn’t see that, and that made him angry. Anger was an emotion that he knew well, and wouldn’t deny. Griffith was always the one denying his emotions. It made him impossible to read. Did he even feel anything but longing? Guts knew longing. Why didn’t Griffith acknowledge his longing? His desire?

Griffith’s snow-white and snow-soft hair appeared almost silver in the moonlight. Guts reached out absentmindedly and tucked a strand of it behind his ear.  
Griffith started and turned his head slightly to look at him. There was the faintest hint of a smile on Guts’ lips - something which was rarely witnessed. Even Griffith had the decency to be surprised and a little awestruck at the sight. “Guts?”

Wait, why was he almost smiling? Didn’t he hate Griffith? Well, perhaps he didn’t hate him. He simply resented the secrets that he kept, and the way that he was distancing himself from his crew. The way he almost didn’t seem to care for them anymore, and cared only about some faraway desire. So why was he smiling?  
Guts withdrew his hand from where it hovered midair before Griffith, like he was some unattainable star in the distance that his fingers were ever outstretched to, and he had gotten too close and been burned. “It’s nothing. ‘M sorry.” He frowned, looking away.

He jolted, however, when Griffith took back his hand and placed it on his porcelain cheek, which was usually cold as ice, but had a strange warmth in it when his ungloved fingers made contact with the soft flesh. It was Griffith’s turn to smile wordlessly, taking his hand into his and kissing the rough, scarred knuckles that had split open countless times with his petal lips, light as a feather, and then intertwining his fingers with Guts’ callused fingers as their lips met. Griffith’s eyes were closed, his lashes dark and long enough to brush his cheeks. Guts’ eyes were wide open, however, but he slowly began to relax as the chaste kiss became more passionate, but still gentle, and his eyelids fluttered closed.

When Griffith pulled away, Guts felt a wrenching pain inside - different from the one he was so intimately acquainted with. It wasn’t grief or anger - it was an almost beautiful sort of feeling.

Griffith smiled again with one of his eye-catching smiles, but it was more raw and pure than Guts had ever seen before, and arguably far lovelier. “You know, i’ve done things with people that are supposed to be considered intimate, romantic, even. I’ve done those things lots of times.” He made it sound boastful, like he was almost proud of himself, but truly, he was sad.  
“But my heart was never in it. Never. I’ve gone to bed with many men, but I’ve never kissed a man on the lips. Or at least, I never meant it, when I did. So you...can consider this my first.” He looked up at him with his crystalline blue eyes. “Please.”

Guts wasn’t fully sure what a kiss meant to Griffith, but he vaguely knew what it meant to him. It meant a lot, coming from the man he’d admired for a long time. He smiled back. “Sure.”

There was a long pause as Griffith’s eyes returned to the sea. “You know, I have been contemplating something for a long time.”

“Hm? What is it?” Guts leaned back against the edge of the ship, looking into Griffith’s clear blue eyes. They were dark as the sea, though, when he looked at them.

“You know you made me forget my dream, right? On several occasions. You’re the only one who was able to do that. I know you still don’t know what it is. My dream, I  
mean. I never intended to confide it in you. It was always my burden to carry, and mine alone. But you are mine, too. I don’t know what I ever intended to do. I can only  
carry one burden - you, or my dream.”

“So I’m a burden, huh?” Guts scoffed slightly, but he understood. “You know, a dream shouldn’t be a burden. Dreams should set you free.” He never expected to catch himself saying something so profound.

“You really are a poet tonight, aren’t you?”

Guts frowned. “‘S all your fault, makin’ me think so much.”

“But didn’t I tell you not to think? Just do what you feel like. It’s easier that way, trust me.”

Guts looked down, a shadow obscuring his conflicted countenance. “You know I can’t do that. If I could, I would.”

“And if I could only remember my dream in a heartbeat, I might. I don’t know, actually. But it still hurts. I still feel it. The agony.” Griffith? Being open with his emotions? Guts didn’t know what it was he was doing.

Griffith turned his eyes to his once more, only this time they were brimming with tears. It was true. There really was so much pain in his eyes. So much pain, it could fill the entire world. Perhaps that was his real burden. He carried all the world’s pain with him, inside him, and it wouldn’t let him go.

“Guts, please. I need someone to set me free from my dream. I need something else to live for. You can’t leave. Even if you say you want to. Even if that’s what you really want. I couldn’t bear it. Stay with me. Stay, and be a part of my dream. We can rebuild this world together, without any sacrifices.  
“We can win this war, and put all of our pain behind us. Casca, too. She can be a part of our dream. We can all live, and I’ll promise to never let any harm befall any of you, ever again. It’ll be a world where we, just us and our crew, can live in happiness forever. That’ll be my dream.” Griffith gripped his hand, and pulled it close to his chest as tears continued to stream from his eyes.

Guts brushed away a few stray tears. Yes. Yes. Yes. That was what he wanted to say, but in truth he didn’t know what might come out of his mouth.  
Griffith cast his eyes up to the castle that towered in the distance, almost longingly, like a melancholy farewell. “I’ll have to say goodbye to that vision. Never look upon it again. But I wouldn’t regret it. Not if I got to live out an eternity with you.” I’ll never get to take him up to the palace. I’ll have to say goodbye to him, too. Griffith’s mouth quirked sadly.

Guts wrung Griffith’s hand in his, deeply conflicted. He didn’t want to belong to anyone, and yet he wanted to belong to Griffith. To live out the rest of his days with him and Casca, like he’d said. What decision would he make? Would he stay, or would he leave? Would he surrender, or would he keep fighting? And if he chose the latter, what was it that he would be fighting for?

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @gathererofdust


End file.
